'Doctors wanted' ad can be heard only through a stethoscope!

Doctors are desperately needed in Africa - now the world's first radio ad that can be heard only through a stethoscope has been launched to encourage foreign doctors to work there.

The idea is a collaboration from Africa Health Placements, a social-profit recruitment agency and Boomtown, a strategic brand agency in South Africa

They sent a direct mail package out to their target audience: foreign doctors . But rather than a pamphlet that could easily be thrown away, they found an innovative advertisement strategy that would only be heard by doctors…literally.

The package contains a pressure-activated device, that reads ‘place stethoscope here.’ Upon pressing down with the stethoscope , a low frequency MP3 is activated which is only audible through the instrument.

Admiring comment from PSFK, www.psfk.com, in New York, " The strategy creates an interactive advertisement that targets its intended audience so precisely by transforming an essential tool of the trade into the only means of accessing the ad. Its format provokes curiosity and then provides the necessary information in a unique way."

The advertisement won a silver Clio Healthcare award, which rewards creative excellence in advertising in the medical industry.

Noel Young

Former editor of Sunday Mail in Glasgow and Group Managing editor of Daily Record and Sunday Mail. Now Boston-based US correspondent for UK newspapers including Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Sunday Post. Material also syndicated by Edit International in Florida. US editor for The Drum.

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